Driving the Day

Good Sunday morning. THE NEXT FEW WEEKS — @mkraju: “On Trump’s first full day of vacation, WH does not disclose any of his activities, per pool report”. THE PRESIDENT also tweeted at 6:36 p.m.: “Working in Bedminster, N.J., as long planned construction is being done at the White House. This is not a vacation – meetings and calls!” But according to pictures posted on Instagram, he did play golf Saturday. http://bit.ly/2vDTw1W

SOMEONE WATCHED SESSIONS’ PRESS CONFERENCE! — @realDonaldTrump at 6:58 p.m.: “After many years of LEAKS going on in Washington, it is great to see the A.G. taking action! For National Security, the tougher the better!”

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SPOTTED: GOV. CHRIS and MARY PAT CHRISTIE yesterday at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, watching Cowboys owner Jerry Jones get enshrined. Pic via the @DallasCowboys Twitter accounthttp://bit.ly/2udoNom … KELLYANNE CONWAY last night at the Tropicana Hotel in Atlantic City. She was hanging with friends in the Boogie Nights nightclub after a long dinner at the Palm. … FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA and his wife Michelle celebrated his birthday Friday night at Rasika West End. The pair dined in the private dining room and stayed for a couple of hours. This is the second time the president has celebrated his birthday at the restaurant.

L.A. TIMES: “President Trump is tasked with governing, but he keeps harping on these 7 things,” by Kurtis Lee http://lat.ms/2vuirVr

ARTICLE OF THE DAY – NYT A1, “Republican Shadow Campaign for 2020 Takes Shape as Trump Doubts Grow,” by Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns (print headline: “President Aside, G.O.P. Stars Move Toward 2020 Bids”): “Senators Tom Cotton and Ben Sasse have already been to Iowa this year, Gov. John Kasich is eyeing a return visit to New Hampshire, and Mike Pence’s schedule is so full of political events that Republicans joke that he is acting more like a second-term vice president hoping to clear the field than a No. 2 sworn in a little over six months ago. President Trump’s first term is ostensibly just warming up, but luminaries in his own party have begun what amounts to a shadow campaign for 2020 — as if the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue weren’t involved. The would-be candidates are cultivating some of the party’s most prominent donors, courting conservative interest groups and carefully enhancing their profiles. Mr. Trump has given no indication that he will decline to seek a second term.

“But the sheer disarray surrounding this presidency — the intensifying investigation by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and the plain uncertainty about what Mr. Trump will do in the next week, let alone in the next election — have prompted Republican officeholders to take political steps unheard-of so soon into a new administration. … But in interviews with more than 75 Republicans at every level of the party, elected officials, donors and strategists expressed widespread uncertainty about whether Mr. Trump would be on the ballot in 2020 and little doubt that others in the party are engaged in barely veiled contingency planning. … Mr. Pence has made no overt efforts to separate himself from the beleaguered president. He has kept up his relentless public praise and even in private is careful to bow to the president. Mr. Pence’s aides, however, have been less restrained in private, according to two people briefed on the conversations.

“In a June meeting with Al Hubbard, an Indiana Republican who was a top economic official in Mr. Bush’s White House, an aide to the vice president, Marty Obst, said that they wanted to be prepared to run in case there was an opening in 2020 and that Mr. Pence would need Mr. Hubbard’s help, according to a Republican briefed on the meeting. Reached on the phone, Mr. Hubbard declined to comment. Mr. Ayers has signaled to multiple major Republican donors that Mr. Pence wants to be ready. Mr. Obst denied that he and Mr. Ayers had made any private insinuations and called suggestions that the vice president was positioning himself for 2020 ‘beyond ridiculous.’ …

“Nikki Haley, the ambassador to the United Nations and a former governor of South Carolina, put her longtime pollster on the payroll, has gotten better acquainted with some of New York’s financiers and carved out a far more muscular foreign policy niche than Mr. Trump. ‘She sounds more like me than Trump,’ said Senator Lindsey Graham, a hawkish Republican from South Carolina.” http://nyti.ms/2vC1ckK

VP MIKE PENCE RESPONDS — “Today’s article in the New York Times is disgraceful and offensive to me, my family, and our entire team. The allegations in this article are categorically false and represent just the latest attempt by the media to divide this Administration. Thanks to the President’s leadership, we are rebuilding the military, ISIS is on the run, and we’ve seen more than 1 million jobs created while the stock market hits all-time highs.

“The American people know that I could not be more honored to be working side by side with a president who is making America great again. Whatever fake news may come our way, my entire team will continue to focus all our efforts to advance the President’s agenda and see him re-elected in 2020. Any suggestion otherwise is both laughable and absurd.”

KELLYANNE CONWAY talking with GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS on ABC’s “This Week” about whether Pence is setting up a shadow campaign: “That is complete fiction. That is complete fabrication. And I know that his advisers who had comments attributed to them have pushed back strongly, as has the vice president. And as am I right now unequivocally. Vice President Pence is a very loyal, very dutiful, but also incredibly effective vice president, and active vice president, with this president. He is a peer to the president in the West Wing. …

“But let me make very clear, people meet — Republican consultants, as always, people trying to play the parlor game, they’re not on the – they’re in the I would say Trump inside — inner circle because they did not believe in him. They totally missed what was happening in America. … I would tell my Republican brethren: get onboard. Help us with tax reform and health reform and stop looking at 2020.”

— ALSO IN JMART and ALEX’s story: “In the wider world of conservative Trump opponents, William Kristol, editor at large of The Weekly Standard, said he had begun informal conversations about creating a ‘Committee Not to Renominate the President.’” Kristol told us this morning that the proposed name is a dig at Trump being like Nixon in his opinion. He also said he hasn’t set up the group yet but so far only talked about doing so with “people you’d expect in GOP anti-Trump circles.”

— FROM KRISTOL’s weekly newsletter, “Kristol Clear” last Monday: “Mike Murphy and I had lunch Friday at a suitably obscure Chinese restaurant in an L.A. strip mall, Hu’s Szechwan Restaurant, where we ended up in a long session plotting the salvation of the GOP and conservatism from Donald Trump. We’ll see whether anything comes of it.”

ON THE WORLD STAGE — “North Korea Shrugs Off Sanctions Despite China’s Push to End Missile Tests,” by WSJ’s Ben Otto in Manila: “The U.S. praised China for backing new economic sanctions by the U.N. Security Council against Pyongyang over the regime’s weapons program, but North Korea indicated to its most important economic partner that there would be no change in policy. ‘The fact that the Chinese were helpful and instrumental in setting up this really sweeping set of international sanctions shows they realize that this is a huge problem they need to take on, that it’s a threat to them and their region,’ Susan Thornton, the U.S. State Department’s acting assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told journalists on the sidelines of regional security meetings in the Philippines on Sunday. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is attending the forum bringing together 27 nations, including China, Russia, South Korea and North Korea, described the sanctions as ‘a good outcome’ as he works to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear-weapons program.

“The Security Council on Saturday unanimously passed a resolution that would slash about $1 billion from North Korea’s annual foreign revenue. Ms. Thornton called the sanctions the strongest against the regime in a generation. China and Russia, two permanent council members who had previously resisted fresh sanctions against Pyongyang, said the rogue nation’s recent provocations were unacceptable.” http://on.wsj.com/2uvMUhl

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REVIVING HEALTH CARE? — “McConnell to consider bipartisan plan to pay health insurers,” by AP’s Adam Beam at Fancy Farm, Ky.: “A week after an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’d consider a bipartisan effort to continue payments to insurers to avert a costly rattling of health insurance markets. McConnell told reporters Saturday there is ‘still a chance’ the Senate could revive the measure to repeal and replace ‘Obamacare,’ but he acknowledged the window for that is rapidly closing. The Kentucky senator noted Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is working on ‘some kind of bipartisan approach’ that would involve subsidies for insurance companies.

“Alexander recently said he will work with the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, on a bill next month that would pay insurers through 2018. In exchange, Alexander wants Democrats to agree to make it easier for states to choose their own health coverage standards that insurers must provide rather than abiding by former President Barack Obama’s law. ‘If the Democrats are willing to support some real reforms rather than just an insurance company bailout, I would be willing to take a look at it,’ McConnell said, hours before he was expected to speak at the famously raucous Fancy Farm picnic in western Kentucky.” http://bit.ly/2fjCUpx

THE RESISTANCE — “Obama’s army takes on Trump,” by Isaac Dovere in Chicago: “Walk into Organizing for Action’s new hipster downtown hardwood space here, and there’s no big picture of Barack Obama, just a deep blue wall with a giant ‘OFA’ painted in white. Look down the street from the front door, though, and Chicago’s Trump skyscraper looms directly in the line of sight, a perpetual reminder of the group’s new purpose.

“Fresh off a huge win for anti-Trump forces in the Obamacare repeal fight, the Democratic activist group is gearing up for its next showdown this fall—battling President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts with the same state- and district-focused strategy it employed on health care. The organization inspired by Obama hasn’t heard from him in months, though a person close to the former president said he’s likely to lend his support later this year to OFA as well as the [DNC] and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. That could include fundraising and other help, but not a direct leadership role.

“In the meantime, OFA isn’t sitting still. It’s already looking at plans to go into 2018 with a massive voter registration drive that could become its main project ahead of the midterms. First, though, OFA will spend Congress’ August recess sending organizers to town halls and district offices. It has a calendar of ‘accountability’ (read: protest) and ‘appreciation’ (read: drop-ins like the one to deliver cupcakes to Sen. Joe Manchin’s West Virginia office last week) events, based on senators’ votes on repealing Obamacare. They’re showing up to cheer for John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, and yell at people like Jeff Flake and Dean Heller.” http://politi.co/2vbzfhs

— DAN BALZ: “The future of the Democratic Party could be written in upcoming gubernatorial races”:http://wapo.st/2vuq7qK

STEPHEN MILLER’S NEW GIG? — “Trump eyes top policy aide for communications director role: official,” by Reuters’ Stephen Holland: “The White House may appoint a senior policy adviser with hardline views on immigration, who recently sparred with reporters in a televised briefing, as its new communications director, a senior administration official said on Saturday. Stephen Miller, a top aide and speechwriter for President Donald Trump, is a candidate to lead the White House’s communications team after a series of personnel changes in the more than six months that Trump has been president.” http://reut.rs/2ufFhjQ

THE TWEETER IN CHIEF — “New Chief of Staff Reins in White House Aides-and Trump’s Tweets,” by Bloomberg’s Jen Jacobs and Margaret Talev: “Perhaps even more important, Kelly is testing his authority to tame Trump’s sometimes reckless tweeting habits. While Kelly isn’t vetting every presidential tweet, Trump has shown a willingness to consult with his chief of staff before hitting ‘send’ on certain missives that might cause an international uproar or lead to unwelcome distractions, according to three people familiar with the interactions. Kelly has been ‘offering a different way to say the same thing,’ the person said.” https://bloom.bg/2vbfpTg

SUNDAY BEST — CHRIS WALLACE interviews DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL ROD ROSENSTEIN on “Fox News Sunday,” by Zach Warmbrodt: “Rosenstein said Sunday that President Donald Trump has not directed the Justice Department to investigate ‘particular people,’ after Trump said at a rally Thursday that prosecutors should look at Hillary Clinton’s ‘33,000 deleted emails.’ Asked on ‘Fox News Sunday’ if he viewed Trump’s comment as an order, Rosenstein said, ‘If the president wants to give orders to us … he does that privately and then if we have any feedback we provide it to him.’ ‘The president has not directed us to investigate particular people,’ he said. ‘That wouldn’t be right. That’s not the way we operate.’ …

“Responding to a question about special counsel Robert Mueller expanding the investigation to Trump’s finances, Rosenstein said the Justice Department doesn’t engage in ‘fishing expeditions.’ (Mueller is answering to Rosenstein since Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from the Russia investigation.) If Mueller finds something outside the scope of the investigation as outlined in an agreement with Rosenstein, ‘he needs to come to the acting attorney general, at this time me, for permission to expand his investigation.’ ‘But we don’t talk about that publicly,’ he said.” http://politi.co/2vCeDkq

— SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R-ARIZ.) talks with NBC’S CHUCK TODD on “Meet the Press”: TODD: And I am just curious did you think about leaving the party? FLAKE: “No. No. Not at all. I’m a proud Republican. Lifelong Republican. And I’m from Arizona. Arizona tends to elect independent minded people and people who stand on principles. So I’m doing what I think my voters expect of me. But I think, for example, in 2006 when the party in particular had given way to inappropriate spending, earmarked spending, a couple of our colleagues ended up in jail, if you remember, the mantra, ‘Drain the swamp,’ was employed very effectively by the Democrats in describing the Republican Party at that time. And I think had we stood up at that time then we wouldn’t have lost those majorities in the House and the Senate. And I fear that we might do the same again.”

— CHRIS CHRISTIE talks with CNN’S JAKE TAPPER on “State of the Union”: TAPPER: “You’re a former U.S. attorney. You know Bob Mueller and James Comey, for that matter. Doesn’t it trouble you to hear the president denigrate their integrity and the work that they’re doing?” CHRISTIE: “Listen, I don’t think he was talking about Bob Mueller and Jim Comey there. I think he was talking about the coverage that he thinks has been unfair. But let’s make clear, Jake, this is a normal step taken by a careful prosecutor who is doing a thorough investigation. And I think that’s exactly what Bob Mueller is doing. You can’t issue subpoenas without a grand jury. It’s the grand jury that actually issues the subpoenas.

“And so I think Bob Mueller wanted a grand jury that was focused on this, so he could issue subpoenas and then review the evidence. That’s a typical thing to be done in any investigation. I did literally thousands of these as U.S. attorney in seven years in New Jersey. And so I thought that the coverage about how monumental this was is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the way this process works. This is what a careful prosecutor does to do a thorough review of the case. I assume that what Mr. Mueller is doing, based on my experience with him. And let him do his work.”

— ON TRUMP’S NEW JERSEY VACATION — CHRISTIE: “The president is welcome at the gubernatorial beach house any time he wants. We would welcome him with open arms for him to come and take some time at the Jersey Shore. … Now, I would be happy to welcome him. But we’re just happy that the president has decided, of all the places he could go for some relaxation, at least a little bit, during August, that he’s coming to the state of New Jersey. And we recommend that to lots of other people who are watching. Four weeks to go in the summer, come to the Jersey Shore. We’re ready to take you.”

Playbook Reads

PHOTO DU JOUR — Russian President Vladimir Putin rests after fishing during a mini-vacation in the Siberian Tyva region, a few days ago in a photo released by the Kremlin on Saturday. | Alexei Nikolsky/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/AP Photo

FRESH HOT MUELLER TAKES — MAUREEN DOWD in the NYT, “Bobby Sticks It to Trump”: “We are in for an epic clash between two septuagenarians who both came from wealthy New York families and attended Ivy League schools but couldn’t be more different — the flamboyant flimflam man and the buttoned-down, buttoned-up boy scout. (And we know the president has no idea how to talk to scouts appropriately.) One has been called America’s straightest arrow. One disdains self-promotion and avoids the press. One married his sweetheart from school days. One was a decorated Marine in Vietnam. One counts patience, humility and honesty as the virtues he lives by and likes to say ‘You’re only as good as your word.’

“And one’s president. Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio says the president has been lying reflexively since he was a kid bragging about home runs he didn’t hit. He gets warped satisfaction from making up stuff, like those calls from the head of the Boy Scouts and the president of Mexico that the White House just admitted never happened.” http://nyti.ms/2v9amEJ

– JACK SHAFER, “Gone Fishing for Donald Trump: Robert Mueller’s grand jury has a big hole to fill”: “The Constitution plus decades of judicial precedent have endowed grand juries with legal superpowers. … Think of a grand jury as an insatiable maw and you begin to understand Mueller’s task and Trump’s terror. Mountains of phone records, business records, emails, and all manner of paperwork are likely to be subpoenaed by Mueller. … Like Bill Clinton before him, Trump will be compelled to give testimony. He might want to start working on that honesty thing so the special counsel doesn’t nail him on that perjury thing, like independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr did Clinton.” http://politi.co/2v9jOI7

TRUMP’S WASHINGTON — “How Trump’s FCC aided Sinclair’s expansion,” by Margaret Harding McGill and John Hendel: “Sinclair Broadcast Group is expanding its conservative-leaning television empire into nearly three-quarters of American households — but its aggressive takeover of the airwaves wouldn’t have been possible without help from President Donald Trump’s chief at the Federal Communications Commission. Sinclair, already the nation’s largest TV broadcaster, plans to buy 42 stations from Tribune Media in cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, on top of the more than 170 stations it already owns.

“It got a critical assist this spring from Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who revived a decades-old regulatory loophole that will keep Sinclair from vastly exceeding federal limits on media ownership. The change will allow Sinclair — a company known for injecting ‘must run’ conservative segments into its local programming — to reach 72 percent of U.S. households after buying Tribune’s stations. That’s nearly double the congressionally imposed nationwide audience cap of 39 percent.

“The FCC and the company both say the agency wasn’t giving Sinclair any special favors by reviving the loophole, known as the ‘UHF discount,’ which has long been considered technologically obsolete. But the Tribune deal would not have been viable if not for Pai’s intervention: Sinclair already reaches an estimated 38 percent of U.S. households without the discount, leaving it almost no room for growth.” http://politi.co/2wwXHci

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MEDIAWATCH — “New Sexual Harassment Allegations Leveled Against Fox News’ Eric Bolling,” by Yashar Ali in HuffPost: “Three hours after Fox News announced it had suspended host Eric Bolling following allegations that he had sexually harassed female colleagues, a former Fox News guest leveled new accusations against him. Caroline Heldman, who appeared on the network frequently between 2008 and 2011, said Saturday that Bolling was one of three Fox News/Fox Business employees to subject her to sexual harassment. Fox News announced Bolling’s suspension less than 24 hours after an exclusive HuffPost report revealed that the host had sent lewd text messages to female colleagues.” http://bit.ly/2ufSqJx

–YASHAR ALI further notes on Twitter that “an investigation will be conducted by law firm Paul, Weiss.”

–“Top journalist sues Time magazine for ‘sex and age discrimination,’” by The Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison: “The co-founder of the Women’s Equality party, Catherine Mayer, is suing her former employer, Time magazine, for gender and age discrimination, making the weekly … the latest major media company to be embroiled in accusations of institutional sexism. The case … pits one of Britain’s most prominent journalists, who wrote a controversial biography of Prince Charles and was shortlisted for the Orwell prize, against one of America’s most famous magazines, nearly a century old and with millions of readers. …

“Mayer’s suit … covers the final three years of her employment at the title, and her dismissal in 2015. The problems began soon after she was appointed Europe regional editor, after eight years of outstanding performance and appraisals, court documents allege. The suit alleges that Time’s foreign editor appointed Matt McAllester, a younger male colleague, as her deputy, without an open selection process and in violation of promises that she could choose her team. Mayer says McAllester began a campaign to undermine and supplant her, even though she repeatedly raised complaints. Ultimately, Mayer claims, the company took away her responsibilities as Europe editor the year after she took on the position, then forced her to relinquish the title, which the company gave to McAllester. In April 2015 she was fired.” http://bit.ly/2vtLyrZ

BONUS GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman:

–“Bill Browder’s Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee” – The Atlantic:“‘After Khodorkovsky’s conviction, the other oligarchs went to Putin and asked him what they needed to do to avoid sitting in the same cage as Khodorkovsky. Putin’s answer was, ‘Fifty percent’. Not for the Russian government, but for Vladimir Putin personally. From that moment on, Putin became the biggest oligarch in Russia and the richest man in the world.’” http://theatln.tc/2udKKYt

–“Inside Iran’s Mission To Dominate The Middle East,” by BuzzFeed’s Borzou Daragahi: “Iran has enlisted tens of thousands of young Shiite men into an armed network that is challenging the U.S. across the Middle East. The Trump administration is not prepared.” http://bzfd.it/2hxC09u

–“Is Hungary the EU’s first rogue state? Viktor Orban and the long march from freedom,” by Martin Fletcher in the New Statesman: “As a student activist, Orban helped free Hungary from communism. As its prime minister, he practises ‘illiberal democracy’ and praises Trump and Putin.” http://bit.ly/2vzwN6F

–“What Would It Take for an American Guy to Become Danish?” by Andrew Richdale in Saveur: “Saveur’s resident Scandiphile eats and drinks his way through Copenhagen in search of cultural transformation.” http://bit.ly/2hx2NTv (h/t Longreads.com)

— “Why Do Republicans Want to Kill Horses? An unpalatable and indefensible initiative that cannot end well,” by David Horowitz in Front Page Magazine: “It’s a massive power grab by the beef lobby, which would prefer to cull wild horses and burros so public lands can be devoted to livestock-grazing. No one else will rejoice in the heartland at the prospect of being able to chow down on a horse steak or a horse-burger.” http://bit.ly/2wjW4iY

–“The Greatest Person then Living,” by Andrew Bacevich in the London Review of Books, reviewing “The General v. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War,” by H.W. Brands: “[T]hough nominally subordinate, MacArthur had become Truman’s near equal and aspired to succeed him. The two had never met. Having spent the previous several years presiding over the rehabilitation of occupied Japan, the five-star general was accustomed to exercising quasi-sovereign authority. ‘In moments of reflection,’ Brands writes, ‘he asked himself if any other great country had ever owed more to one man. He could not think of an instance.’ He conducted himself accordingly.” http://bit.ly/2fhc15u … $15.59 on Amazonhttp://amzn.to/2vaOYNv

–“One night on the Costa del Sol: a true crime story of rape, murder and wrongful conviction,” by Matthew Bremner in the New Statesman: “‘All I could think of was: why? Why was I here? How had this happened to me, to an innocent person?” http://bit.ly/2wh2IGX

–“You Are the Product,” by John Lanchester in the London Review of Books: “I’ve spent time thinking about Facebook, and the thing I keep coming back to is that its users don’t realise what it is the company does. What Facebook does is watch you, and then use what it knows about you and your behaviour to sell ads. I’m not sure there has ever been a more complete disconnect between what a company says it does – ‘connect’, ‘build communities’ – and the commercial reality.” http://bit.ly/2v8yiq7 (h/t TheBrowser.com)

–“‘I Write on Human Skin’: Catherine the Great and the Rule of Law,” by Robert Zaretsky in the LA Review of Books: “Today marks the 250th anniversary of the Legislative Commission convened by the Empress Catherine the Great. (‘Great,’ incidentally, is a title she humbly refused when it was offered by the Commission — though her humility takes a hit upon learning that she had also instructed the Commission to offer the title.)” http://bit.ly/2v6zOKP

–“Is the world really better than ever?” by Oliver Burkeman in The Guardian: “The headlines have never been worse. But an increasingly influential group of thinkers insists that humankind has never had it so good – and only our pessimism is holding us back.” http://bit.ly/2v6qBSJ (h/t ALDaily.com)

–“The ghostly radio station that no one claims to run: ‘MDZhB’ has been broadcasting since 1982. No one knows why,” by Zaria Gorvett in the BBC: “‘Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the last three-and-a-half decades, it’s been broadcasting a dull, mono­tonous tone. Every few seconds it’s joined by a second sound, like some ghostly ship sounding its foghorn. Then the drone continues.” http://bbc.in/2vBV7VZ

–“Venezuela’s Unprecedented Collapse,” by Ricardo Hausmann in Project Syndicate: “Venezuela’s economic catastrophe dwarfs any in the history of the U.S., Western Europe, or the rest of Latin America.” http://bit.ly/2v5Sz0W

–“Picasso and Tragedy,” by T.J. Clark in the London Review of Books: “What marks Guernica off from most other murals of its giant size is the fact that it registers so power­fully as a single scene. It is patched together out of fragments, episodes, spotlit silhouettes. Part of its agony is disconnectedness – the isolation that terror is meant to enforce. But this disconnectedness is drawn together into a unity: Guernica does not unwind like a scroll; it is a picture – a distinct shape of space – whose coherence is felt immediately by the viewer for all its strangeness.” http://bit.ly/2v8ydCM (h/t TheBrowser.com)

–“The ‘Rock Star’ Activist Leading the Resistance,” by Daniel Malloy in Ozy: ACLU political director Faiz Shakir “could lift the Democrats from their lowest point since 1921.” With cameos from Adam Jentleson and Matt Canterhttp://bit.ly/2wgJ5ys

–“Trump, America’s Boy King: Golf and Television Won’t Make America Great Again,” by Newsweek’s Alexander Nazaryan: “Trump’s friends say golf is important to his well-being, just as cycling and rock climbing are de rigueur for the younger titans of Silicon Valley. ‘He is always working,’ longtime confidant Roger J. Stone Jr. tells me, ‘even while socializing, playing golf or traveling. He is constantly asking questions, taking notes and placing phone calls. A better question would be, Does he ever really relax?’” http://bit.ly/2v8jhob

Playbookers

POLITICO Screen grab

SPOTTED — Stephen Miller last night holding court in the Trump Hotel lobby with Nigel Farage. Nigel posed for pictures with fans, including kicking his foot up in the air … Jason Miller on a flight from Dulles to Miami … Rod Rosenstein, surrounded by security, walking out of 400 North Capitol Street this morning into two waiting black Chevy Suburbans after his hit on “Fox News Sunday”

WEEKEND WEDDINGS – “Lara Crystal, Robert Saliterman” – N.Y. Times: “Ms. Crystal, 35, is a founder and a chief executive of Minibar Delivery, an online marketplace for wine, beer and spirits, with offices in New York. She graduated cum laude from Cornell and received an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. … Mr. Saliterman, also 35, is a global advertising agency partner in New York for Snapchat, the image messaging app. He graduated from Columbia and received an M.B.A. from Harvard. … The couple met through the League, a dating app, in July 2015.” With pichttp://nyti.ms/2vaXyff

–“Anja Crowder, Peter Morice”: “Mrs. Morice, 27, is the talent booker for political and current events guests for ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.’ Until recently she was a producer at ABC News in New York for ‘This Week With George Stephanopoulos.’ She graduated cum laude from Macalester College. … Mr. Morice, also 27, is the chief operating officer in New York at the TEG Energy Group, which specializes in automation and control systems for industrial power generation in New York. He graduated summa cum laude from Columbia. … The couple met in seventh grade at St. Paul Academy and Summit School and began dating in high school.” With pichttp://nyti.ms/2vaXUCP

–“Ariel Herm, Adam Koshkin”: “In September, Ms. Herm, 29, will begin working as a consultant in health education at the Permanente Medical Group in Oakland, Calif. She graduated from Haverford, and received a master’s degree in public health from the University of Michigan. … Also in September, Mr. Koshkin, 28, will begin a clerkship for United States District Court Judge Judith E. Levy of the Eastern District of Michigan, with chambers in Ann Arbor. He graduated from Swarthmore and received a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He worked as a research assistant for Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, as a member of the staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. … The couple met in Washington in 2011.” With pichttp://nyti.ms/2vCnoLl

–Luca Gattoni-Celli, who reports on tax reform and the IRS for Tax Analysts, and Laura Joy Yackley, a middle and high school orchestra teacher in Prince George’s County, were married Saturday at Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Woodbridge, Virginia. “They met in January 2016 through Coffee Meets Bagel. Their first date was dim sum in the POLITICO mothership building in Rosslyn.” Picshttp://bit.ly/2hAjtcS … http://bit.ly/2vE2Z9M … http://bit.ly/2wwXA0p

— Abbey Reller, legislative aide for Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), married Reed Linsk, legislative director for Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), Saturday in her hometown of Indianapolis. They met four years ago in the basement of Hamilton’s. Pichttp://bit.ly/2uwaWJa

ENGAGED — David Mansouri, president of SCORE, the education reform nonprofit started by Bill Frist and an alum of Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign and the Tennessee Republican Party, got engaged on Saturday to Sarah Greenberg, who works on health policy reform for TennCare, Tennessee’s Medicaid system. Mansouri, fresh off a flight from Berlin where he was attending a Young Leaders conference held by the American Council on Germany, proposed at Arrington Vineyards right outside of Nashville where they had one of their first dates. A mutual friend set up the couple on a blind date three years ago. Pichttp://bit.ly/2vubaot

OBAMA ALUMNI — “Christiana Stephenson, Matthew Aks”: “The couple met at Brown, from which they graduated, he magna cum laude. Ms. Stephenson, 27, is the communications director for the Massachusetts Union for Human Service Workers and Educators, SEIU Local 509, in Marlborough, Mass. … Mr. Aks, 28, is studying for an M.B.A. degree at Harvard.” He was previously director for international economics at the NSC and is an Obama CEA alum. With pichttp://nyti.ms/2fiMTv2

****** A message from Morgan Stanley: The Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, with The Economist Intelligence Unit, created the Inclusive Growth Opportunities Index to explore technology investments that can increase access to finance, healthcare and education, and enhance gender inclusion. The report and interactive tool, which allows users to rank 20 emerging and developed countries, highlights the potential for investment opportunities that drive inclusive economic growth. See which countries indexed high on the list, and where there are opportunities to invest in inclusive growth. Read more from Morgan Stanley. ******

The host of TYT Network's nationally-syndicated Bill Press Show (Monday-Friday from 7-9am ET), Press attends the daily White House press briefing and writes a weekly column for the powerhouse politics website The Hill.